Conventional thinking to explain why certain groups of armed men are willing to fight to the last man and the last bullet usually revolve around the obvious: esprit de corps, Prussian style training and discipline, absolute loyalty to a charismatic commander, bitter hatred of the enemy, extreme altruism--the list goes on and on. What Bryan Perrett adds in LAST STAND to a mixture that rarely contains all the above is the small number of those willing to die for a cause. Surprisingly enough for the non-military historian is his claim that last stands historically did not involve elite units who presumably would be the most likely candidates for self-sacrifice. The case studies represent a sampling of bravery that ranges from the well-known massacres of Custer at the Little Big Horn to further massacres at the Alamo and to unexpected triumphs at Rorke's Drift. Perrett analyzes thirteen battles all of which involved soldiers willing to fight to the death, and in most of them, they did. Perrett's expertise in wartime tactics and his fluid prose style help to explain why some are willing to die for a belief even if most are not.

In this series of essays about last-ditch resistance on the battlefield, we are taken on a tour of military history from Waterloo to Big Horn to Zululand to Korea. Perrett's crisp style and sound military background combine with his empathy for the men who together squarely and faced, and usually met, death without flinching. With a few exceptions such as Rorke's Drift, most units making an heroic last stand will end up losing. Perrett makes that point that while some last-stands such as Arnhem Bridge, may have had incidental side-benefits (stalling the Germans long enough that other bridges might be held), others like the Foreign Legion at Camerone or the Imperial Guard at Waterloo, serve only as regimental glories. Yet others, like The Alamo or the American defense of Wake Island, featured gallantry that inspired the homefront towards total victory. Superb military history.

This book is a series of short essays on famous last ditch battles fought through out history from Waterloo in 1815 through Imjin in Korea in 1952. While it does not cover every great last stand, by no means even a large number of them, it is still a very worthwhile book.

It covers about 10 such battles all over the world during this time period, and is written in a very easy to read format. The stories will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time, and you will come away from it with a great deal of knowledge. Many of the stories are complete enough to shed light on a single individual involved, not just the whole unit involved.

If you like the underdog, or a fight against all odds, this book is for you.

Bryan Perrett is not only an impeccable researcher, but also a writer skilled enough to bring you right into the action. This happy facility is displayed again in this work, encompassing thirteen "last stand" actions from Wellington's Foot Guards at Hougoumont to the U.S. Army on Pork Chop Hill (Korea).
These dramatic stories of outnumbered defenders are brought to life not only with clear and fast-moving narrative but also with the accurate details of units and equipment which are so important to the reader of military history.
With photos, bibliography, excellent maps, and thorough index, this work is highly recommended, as are all Perrett's other works.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting within Amazon's format. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings.)

This book has 566 battles, that are real easy to find. They list the commander of each opposing sides, the objectives, the strength of the armies, their causalities, results, dates , and references.

This is a really nice an convenient book, for military war buffs, or even if you're preference is WW 2, American Civil War, European wars, current or ancient wars.
Extremely easy to use as well.

This is a very interesting book, which exceeded my expectations. In a single chapter, the author is able to provide insight into the strategic importance of the each individual battle, then goes into enough detail to put the reader at the scene.

The diversity of the chapters, from a Napoleonic conflict to Rangers at D-Day, is a big plus, and things never bog down. My favorite section was the coverage of the Battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane from the War of 1812, a period that I'm not to familiar with.

Reading this book is a breeze, and I'd love to see Perrett release a sequel. Well done...

This is as good a book about tanks as one would wish to have. Perrett does what so many military historians neglect to do: he explains what a weapon is for, what a weapon does and why it is needed. He is both comfortable with the subject-matter and capable of stringing a sentence together - again, a rare combination among military historians. And in a series of self-contained chapters, he takes us from the fields of Cambrai in 1917 to the armored flanking movements of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Particularly impressive are his stories of the World War One armored car units, as well as his account of the British yeomanry during the Battle of Alamein 1942. His judicious use of first hand information gives you a firm impression of what it is to live, and die, inside these machines.

This is the type of history that you won't read in history books and as a layman in military history, I have to say I have been completely brought "about-face" to the realities of WWI--especially the British-Russian Armored car Squadron of the Royal Navy--this would be the "other" heroic story we didn't read about after "Lawrence of Arabia"--so it should be "Oliver of Russia". There should be a sequel with the "rest of the story".

Perrett, a tank expert, here covers the history of armored warfare through examination of significant battles, from World War I through Desert Sabre (Gulf War). He has avoided some battles which have been written about to the point of redundancy elsewhere, concentrating on the evolution of equipment and tactics and always keeping in mind the experience of the men inside the tank. The result is a happy conjuction of technical expertise and action narrative which is informative and a pleasure to read.
Highly recommended for the general reader of military history, and especially for students of armored warfare.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting with Amazon's format. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings.)

This book, more so than the other New Vanguard books (in my opinion), focuses on the employment of the German armored reconnaissance units, more so than on the hardware involved, unlike, say, Zaloga's dissection of the T-34 in the relevant New Vanguard books. The book is a very good reference, marred only by some so-so color art, and a must for anyone interested in German recon of WWII.

The Vanguard series is intended to give a brief introducton to various weapons systems used in the major wars of the 20th century. As such, they include color plates of various paint schemes on campaign, a sectional drawing of a representative vehicle, and plenty of B&W photos in the text. All this is wrapped in an elementary text based on new research in newly opened archives and presented in an attractive format. Useful to war gamers, students, and model makers.

Perret's book on the formation and use of German armor in World War II is a good read if you just gotta have everything about German tanks. He does a good job relating most of the major campaigns and battles where the panzerwaffe made or failed to make relevant contributions. He relys heavily on German memoirs that we now know are somewhat suspect. I think that he could probably write a much better and more complete book on the subject now, by comparing the German accounts to those of the allies, particularly the Russians.

The overwhelming mass of his story is about the Eastern Front. He provides many interesting anecdotes as well as numerous sidebars on tank development, tank types, and production issues. The book's principle failure though, is introduced by General Senger und Etterlin, whole was no stranger to armored warfare (as an aside, although SuE participated and many of the campaigns described, his name is nowhere else mentioned). General Senger wrote that there were three schools of thought on how tanks should have been employed before WWII. The implication is that the Germans picked one (perhaps the wrong one) and pursued it to its logical conclusion, which was not enough to win the war. Why this happened, and what debates existed in the German army thoughout the war, the author does not address again. Too bad, because the battle details are well known -- what is unknown is how the German reconciled the tactical and operational use of their "two armies."

More space should have gone to the African campaign, and how German victory in 1939-1940 influenced subsequent battles, especially in the East. Also, not every panzer general had the same background or the same experience. He should have highlighted more of these. Finally, the German use of armor after Dec 1941 is totally different than pre 1942 (possibly with the exception of Rommel). If the author could have identified that shift in usage and explained why it occurred, he would have made a great contribution to understanding mobile warfare as practiced by the Germans in WWII.

The appendices are very good, and there is also a fair amount of technical detail that doesn't bog you down.

So, if you have to have everything about panzers, it is a good buy. If you are looking for something with more conceptual substance or a more comprehensive look at German operations, you may be disappointed.

I read this book thinking it would be about Knights Cross winners. It has nothing to do with that.

This book is about the development and war time use of the German tank.

There is a great deal of good information, even if it isn't written in a way that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

The author did make some good points about major events in the war that you never hear about. His reason for the Germans stopping outside Dunkirk sheds some new light on the debate.

I personally found it annoying that the author had such a dim view of Rommel, and I found all of his views about his poor leadership very easy to argue away.

There is bery little actual combat action in the book, and most of that is at the battlegoup, or division level.

This is not an action packed book, but the author did his homework, and has some very interesting information on German tanks and their operational useage during the war. You won't see this information in any other book or History Channel show.

Bryan Perrett's Knights of the Black Cross is a brief guide to German panzer units during the Second World War. In the book, you can reach good detailed information about the history of the panzer units as well as you can benefit from Perrett's valuable analysis of comparison of German panzers with their opponents' weapons. His comparison of tanks, armored carriers, assault guns self-propelled artillery and anti-tank guns will help new researchers' studies. Perrett also emphasised and focused on influence of German panzer commanders during the war. In the book, you can find, for example, strength of panzer divisions in the major operations, development of the panzer quality between operations, captured tanks used in operations by German units and more... His information giving in the book was well-supported by good statistics. Each major operation was supported by a map. There are also some maps showing selected local operations. The book consists of eleven chapters and four appendices. In the first chapter, Perrett has written the establishment and first experiences including panzers' first using in the Spanish Civil War. Next three chapters, he has continued with the role of panzers interdependently to the major events during campaigns in Poland, Norway and Denmark, France, Balkans and Barbarossa up to the end of Moscow. In the fifth chapter, he has made comparison of panzers, their critics, upgrades and early actions for preparing German Summer Offensive in 1942. In the next chapter he has included the Operation Case Blue, Stalingrad disaster and Battle for Kharkov. He has set apart the seventh chapter for about the panzer actions in North Africa and Meditterennean. Eighth chapter has a significance due to the development of superior class of panzers and their first experience in the Battle of Kursk. This chapter also covers the events in the Eastern Front during the first half of 1944. In the next chapter, Perrett has completed the previous events upto 1945. In chapter ten he has focused on the Italian and Western Fronts. In the last chapter, Perrett compiled all fronts focusing on panzer foeces in 1945. In appendices you can find more information about German tank design, short histories of German panzer divisions, orders of battles of German, Soviet, British and the US armored units. The book is very helpful for military history researchers and it is an excellent guide to the German panzers.

The author's attempts to draw parallels between the career of Admiral Gordon and the fictional Horatio Hornblower generally are stretches. I thought he needed to reread the Hornblower books before making some of the comments he did. His list of similarities in their careers in the forward would be more effective if they were accurate for Hornblower. However, the dates for different ranks are wrong. He also equates Gordon's enlistment at 11 with Hornblower's joining at 17 as both being "mere boys in 1793." Hornblower was actually old for a new midshipman.

However, we should be grateful that this dubious premise sold the book, because Perrett has provided us with a very solid biography of a typical naval officer of this period. Gordon is not in the first rank of Napoleonic naval officers, but the variety of his experiences and actions shows the type of man who made the British navy great. With the skill of the true historian, Perrett has dug out details of long forgotten actions and campaigns. His style is readable, and he has an eye for the sort of detail that adds zest to a biography.

The life of Admiral Gordon is very interesting and the book is a pleasure to read. The comparisons between Gordon and Hornblower are not overdone, and even readers who are not Hornblower afficionados (like myself) will enjoy the book.

As a lifelong Hornblower/C.S.Forester fan, I read this book with some trepidation, but Perrett seems to be a fan as well. He proposes a new theory: that Forester created the character of Horatio Hornblower using the model of a real Royal Navy captain in the Napoleonic Wars : James Gordon (who eventually became an admiral). Perrett hangs most of the premise for his theory upon an apparent inconsistency in C.S. Forester's otherwise thorough nonfiction writing style. In Forester's NAVAL WAR OF 1812 (nonfiction),he barely mentions Captain Gordon's name, even though Gordon had had a brilliant and successful career. Perrett notes that Forester gives other brilliant naval officers full career write-ups, even including information on their families. This(in addition to a few other similarities in Hornblower's/Gordon's respective careers) has made Perrett feel that Forester was "hiding" Gordon, so to speak, so that future casual readers would not see the similarities between the real hero and the fictional one. This reader does not feel that there is quite enough evidence to support that theory, but the book is fascinating reading in its own right, and anyone who enjoys naval history will enjoy it. Gordon comes off as a brave, smart, and kind (but fair)captain, like Hornblower. But because we know so much about Hornblower's every thought,feeling, and motive (due to Forester's superb skills), Hornblower seems more real to me even than does Captain Gordon! Perrett, who has written at least 14 other books on military history, has however done a fine job himself, and Gordon's exploits are brought very much to life indeed. A very good read!